It Is Easy
by Smidgie
Summary: It is easy to adore, envy, mourn, wonder at the sanity of, feel thankful to, hate, pity, love, sympathise with, mourn again, and admire Elizabeth Swann. Second person POV, so new for me, so be gentle. Please read and review.


Greetings, fellow residents of Earth! At least, I hope… **disgruntled mutterings **Merry Christmas / Hanukah / any other holidays you might be celebrating.

This is non Dead Man's Chest compliant, mainly because I don't like DMC that much (although Norrington is waaaaay hotter in it), mainly because of the fight scene where Elizabeth just sits there like an idiot while three hot guys fight over a key / a chest / her honour, mainly because she is an idiot, mainly because with a father like Governor Swann, there's not much you can be.

Unfortunately, I don't own Pirates of the Caribbean; it belongs to some rich sods who make a living out of it. Not like me. My bank account could tell you that much. I do, however, own Johnny Depp who is waiting for me in my bedroom so if you would excuse me… :0)

On with ze story!

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It is easy to adore Elizabeth Swann, when you're five years old and no one will play with you on that dreadfully dull voyage to Port Royal aboard the _Dauntless_ except a thirteen year old girl who would much rather be wheedling pirate yarns from the lieutenants and midshipmen whom adore her but still plays dolls and ridiculous hand clapping games with you.

It is easy to envy Elizabeth Swann, when she's twenty-three and beautiful while you're fifteen and still have no bosom; when you begin to notice the admiring looks Captain Norrington gives her; when he proposes to her and all she can think about is an incredibly dangerous encounter with a horrible pirate.

It is easy to mourn Elizabeth Swann, when she is taken by a group of pirates and the newly named Commodore's jaw is set with a combination of determination and misery; when William Turner breaks the pirate out of jail to save her; when you watch the Dauntless sail at sunset to find her and you cross your fingers and pray to God for her salvation, because no one deserves to die like that, at the hands of merciless pirates.

It is easy to wonder at Elizabeth Swann's sanity when she throws her lot in with a known pirate – the very same one that threatened her down by the harbour! – and a blacksmith she plucked from the ocean ten years ago; when she chooses said poor blacksmith for marriage over Commodore Norrington; when she breaks the Commodore's heart and kisses William Turner in the broad light of day at the very same place the Commodore proposed to her!

It is easy to feel thankful to Elizabeth Turner, when the Commodore begins to come to your home and invite you on long walks; when he first asks to call him James; when he proposes to you on a beach one summer evening (not that you can really tell the difference between the seasons in the Caribbean) and your heart soars with joy.

It is easy to hate Elizabeth Turner, when your husband moans her name while you make love; when she proudly shows off her fourth child and you angrily curse your barren womb and your inability to give your husband a heir; when you see her banter lightly and happily with her husband while yours doesn't speak to you anymore and you no longer share a bedroom.

It is easy to pity Elizabeth Turner, when those four children are left fatherless and she left husbandless when her blacksmith husband drowns on an ill-fated voyage to God knows where; when her father dies and leaves nothing behind but debt forcing her to clean the houses of the society of Port Royal like any other poor housewife; when her children run barefoot and dirty through the streets while your beloved son and daughter are starched and perfect and well-fed in your beautiful mansion.

It is easy to love Elizabeth Turner, when she moves into your home with her family and becomes your children's nanny; when your husband creeps into your room late at night and wraps his arms around you, murmuring your name into your hair; when she treats you more like a best friend than an employer and you realise for the first time how lonely you've been in your perfect mansion while James sails the seas in search of the same dirty pirate that still holds Elizabeth Swann's heart.

It is easy to sympathise with Elizabeth Turner, when James is run through by Jack Sparrow and your children ask you with holes in their eyes when Daddy's coming home; when you curl in your bed and keen for the man who married you loving another woman; when you try to balance the household books but James always did it and you end up weeping as you look at the neat columns of figures in his precise writing and she finds you at dusk all cried out and leads you away gently and when you try to go back there the next day you find all the accounts perfectly laid out in a flowery script.

It is easy to once again mourn Elizabeth Turner, when she dies and her children drift around your home because after so many years there, it's as much their's as yours; when you go to her funeral and look at all those false men and women murmuring their false condolences and see, really see, what Elizabeth saw and why she married the blacksmith she loved rather than the commodore she didn't; when you go to her gravestone next to the one she scrimped and saved to put there for William Turner, even though the grave beneath it is empty, and weep.

It is easy to admire Elizabeth Swann, now that you're old and grey and see her and James in your dreams more often than before, beckoning you to join them; now that you've lived longer than you've ever wanted to or should have; now everyone you knew when you were young is dead; now the commodore's office in Port Royal is occupied by someone else, someone polite and clever but not James; now the Dauntless is no more than a hunk of rotting wood on a beach somewhere; now that you're finally old enough to understand that though you envied or hated or loved Elizabeth Swann, you never could be her, not for James or your children or hers or anyone. Nor did you ever, truly, want to be.

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Thank you for reading, please leave a tip with the doorman. Or a review with the… er… review button.

Ta ta,

Smidgie


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